The Girl in the Photograph
by sunnyamazing
Summary: The girl in the photograph trusted everyone and everything. The girl in the photograph hadn't seen what she has. Beckett during Probable Cause. Inspired by the promo, spoilers contained inside.


**Note:** I watched the promo for Probable Cause and this is what my muse made me write. It has been called a stream of consciousness. I'm not too sure where it came from or if it will even fit into the episode that I am eagerly anticipating but here it is. Exit now if you are spoiler free, otherwise please read on.

Big thanks to blindassassin for her amazing encouragement and reassuring me that I wasn't deranged and to Tadpole24 for her advice on the last few lines, hope you like what I added Em!

I don't own anything you recognise, just impatience for next week.

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**The Girl in the Photograph**  
**- sunnyamazing**

She stares down at the photo album and into the familiar face, so familiar because it is her own. But the face she has now doesn't smile as big, doesn't have eyes that sparkle as brightly.

Because the girl in the photograph's face is now tainted.

Tainted by the tears that run down her cheeks, tainted by the past that changed the way she viewed the world. Changed the way she knew how and whom to trust.

_Trust: the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something._

The girl in the photograph trusted everyone and everything.

She believed that people were reliable, that they told the truth and for the most part that people were generally good.

The girl in the photograph hadn't seen what she has.

The girl in the photograph hasn't seen her mother murdered and hundreds of other mothers meet the same fate. She hasn't been shot, almost frozen to death, held hostage by a double agent and countless other awful things.

She wonders who she would be if she was still the girl in the photograph. Where would she be? Would she still smile as big? Would her eyes still sparkle as bright?

She flicks the album to another page, again she is smiling, she's laughing even. She remembers this day, she remembers the feelings of happiness and laughter rolling through her body.

Her mother and father had entered a three-legged race at her mother's office picnic. They hadn't navigated the race successfully, they'd both fallen at the halfway mark, but as they were stubborn they had to finish the race and had insisted on their 'Katie's' help.

Eventually the three of them had crossed the finish line, last by a mile but it hadn't mattered. They'd been presented with a trophy by one of her mother's colleagues for being last and her Dad had accepted it with so much gusto that he'd sent both his wife and daughter to the ground with a thump. He'd teetered for a few seconds before landing next to them and the three had turned into a laughing, giggling, happy pile of legs and arms.

The photo was taken by the work colleague, Sarah, she remembers suddenly. The girl in the photograph looks so happy, she trusts the world and those who live in it.

The girl in the photograph would never doubt the man she loves. She would never believe that he would do anything but be reliable and trustworthy. Thoughts of him being less than would never cross the girl in the photograph's mind.

She hates the girl in the photograph.

She isn't real. She's just a figment of an imaginary life, a life that isn't imaginary but just feels like it is. Because that time of her life feels so disconnected from the person she is now.

It's like she's had two lives, one so happy and perfect – even though it wasn't always, and the second where there's always something missing, and happiness comes. But is fleeting, or even worse overshadowed by her lack of trust in another, lack of knowledge of who she is without a dark cloud of secrets and conspiracies lurking overhead.

There are moments of great perfection, most of them in the last four years, and most of them featuring a blue-eyed ruggedly handsome author, who she knows she loves as much as she loved her immediate family when she was the girl in the photograph. But then there are moments of great doubt and pain and many of them concern him as well.

She wipes away another tear, she doesn't know who she is sometimes.

Even the worst days have the possibility of joy, but on this day joy seems like a lost cause.

She wonders about the girl in the photograph and believes that she would never have had to search for joy, it simply would have come her way. Would the girl in the photograph even have worst days? No. Not like she's had.

The girl in the photograph would still trust the world and those who live in it. She wouldn't doubt the man she loves, the accusations that he was less than honourable wouldn't faze the girl in the photograph. She'd believe him without having to know all the facts, she'd trust her feelings, because feelings would be enough to her. She wouldn't need to know beyond reasonable doubt, because there would never be any doubt to begin with.

She hates the girl in the photograph.

She isn't real.

She doesn't exist any longer.

The girl she sees each day in the mirror is the real Kate Beckett.

The girl in the mirror has seen too much, felt too much and doesn't trust the world and those who live in it implicitly any longer.

The girl in the mirror believes in proving someone guilty or innocent beyond reasonable doubt and the girl in the mirror doubts the man she loves.

And she hates it.

Almost as much as she hates the girl in the photograph.

She slams the album shut as if the action will reverse time and send this mirror girl back and bring the photograph girl forward.

But nothing changes.

She opens the album again and turns to the page with her favourite photo, carefully she lifts it from the glue and slips it into her pocket. Maybe there is a way to bring the two of them together, the photograph is a reminder of who she was. It isn't someone else, she was that girl once. And the face she carries now is who she became because of circumstance, but that girl still exists, somewhere and if she's ever going to find her, it has to be now.

She doesn't hate the girl in the photograph, she's jealous of the life she had, the fun she had, the life she could have had but never got to have.

But the girl in the mirror has a chance now, she has a chance at something real, something that just might bring a smile as big as the ones contained in the photo album. A life that might make the girl in the mirror have eyes that sparkle more brightly than the girl in the photograph.

There is a chance here and she wants to take it and with a deep breath she does. She stands up, leaving the album behind, wipes the tears from her face and leaves her apartment.

She will get answers, for the girl in the photograph and the girl in the mirror. Because both of them are her and it is time she honoured them both. She is more than the broken pieces that currently make her whole; she is her past and her present.

She's a woman who has made it her life ambition to seek the truth at whatever personal cost. So that is what she will do.

She will seek truth. For her present and her past, and for the girl of the future, the person she has a chance to become.

The girl of the future truly has a chance to be happy.

With him.

One chance she can no longer deny.


End file.
